pists are bound, both in and out of Parliament, never to disturb or weaken, much less to rob the Establishment. The refusal to pay their tithes is palpably the intent to destroy the Church, for unless its ministers can live by it, the Establishment can never see another generation. What is the necessary conclusion, but that such men are not to be bound by oaths. And what is the next conclusion, but that they must be stripped of all means of doing public mischief by exclusion from all public power.

On those points all disguise is at an end. In the debate on Mr Ward's radical motion for "appropriation" (July 2), Mr O'Connell spoke out, and gave the answer which we have been giving for him since the first mention of the subject. He daringly declared that the total abolition of tithes in Ireland, was the only measure which Popery would accept; that the "appropriation" of a surplus to induce an acquiescence in the payment of tithe was a price which the Irish people would no longer suffer. "For his part he never knew Ireland in such danger. If something were not done to satisfy the people, collision, he feared (!), would take place. The insurgents might indeed be defeated, but blood and misery would follow still." He further declared that the people were now meeting in tens and twenties of thousands, going straight to the point, demanding the entire abolition of tithes. "I vote against the motion," said the Agitator," that I may carry out its principle of appropriation, not partially, but fully. In England and in Scotland the tithe is paid to the clergy by the people; in Ireland by a small part of the people. The Catholics outnumber the Protestants by more than five millions and a half."

And this is the man who solemnly swore at the table of Parliament that he would not in any way whatever injure or disturb the Established Church. Yet here we have him the unblushing advocate of its utter robbery, and, by consequence, of its inevitable ruin. And those Roman Catholics who meet to threaten England by the suggestion of their factious priests and other villains, are the men who have pledged themselves a hundred times to abstain religiously from the slightest injury to the Protestant Church. As to their feeling the tithe a grievance, this is

but another of the lies that faction and Popery perpetually spread. Is it not known to every Papist in Ireland that he is not the payer of the tithe? Is it not notorious, that even so late as the beginning of the present century, nineteen-twentieths of the land of Ireland were Protestant property; that there was scarcely an instance of a Roman Catholic in possession of land, almost the whole gentry of Ireland being Protestant, while the peasantry alone were Papist? Who of them virtually pays the tithe? not the Papist peasant who has no land, but the Protestant gentleman who has. If, since the last twenty years, Roman Catholics have begun to purchase land, they have purchased it liable to tithe, and have got it so much the cheaper for the liability. The Papist peasant rents his acres so much the cheaper for the tithe. He perfectly well knows that he has to pay it when he takes these acres, and he is even so far from feeling any reluctance to taking them thus, on the score of his religion, that he notoriously prefers them to land tithefree, and this from the equally notorious fact, that while he must pay the landlord more for the latter, and the landlord will make him pay to the last shilling, he can in most instances harass the clergyman or excite his compassion into remitting a large part of his just demand. Yet we hear continually the same fraudulent fallacy repeated, that the Papist is the payer of what not one Papist in ten thousand ever has paid, and that his conscience is hurt by supporting a Church which he does not support.' When do we find him shrinking with a righteous sensibility from the taking of tithe lands? Never; he actually takes them in preference to all others. And this gross falsehood and virulent folly is poured into the national ear, night by night, and it is upon the testimonies of men capable of using statements at once so mischievous and so shallow, that the nation is called on to abolish Protestantism in Ireland.

We next have Mr Shiel proclaiming the "peril of Ireland." How long is it since this man and his abettors proclaimed its tranquillity?" Lord Mulgrave had conciliated, smoothed down, and softened every thing." Never had the wheels of the state machine run on such level ground before. The magnanimous mercy of the noble

Lord, guided by the legislative wisdom of the general "pacificator," had gone forth establishing a new era in the land.

"Major sæculorum volvitur ordo."

The hills and valleys of Irish turbulence had been taught to smile, the voice of discord had subsided into a whisper, and all was the promise of one great political jubilee; and, upon the strength of those tidings, Lord Mulgrave comes over and is made a Marquis! Mr O'Connell takes the draft of the Queen's speech from the hand of his Cabinet of menials and indorses it with "tranquillity," and the whole tribe, in the new livery of loyalty, bring the offering of "a people's heart" to the coronation!

And what now is declared to be the truth? Why; that every syllable of this paradisaic description was falsethat, while they pronounced Ireland to be calmness itself, it was boiling with rage-that, when the word "tranquillity" was written, it ought to have been written, not with ink, but with blood-and that, instead of the subsidence of the troubled waters in that soil of insurrection, a catastrophe more sweeping than any of its old inflictions was hurrying on by the hour -that, not merely the horizon was clouded, or the tide swollen, but that the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the land on the point of being submerged. Let us hear Mr Shiel, one of those orators at whose lips the silver trumpet was once most silvery. "I think," he exclaims," that you are now speaking of Ireland as in a state of perfect tranquillity. You should remember that, for the last six years, Ireland has been agitated.” (Loud ironical cheers from the Opposition.) "Ireland is in a state of extreme confusion! And, if the Right Honourable Baronet (Peel) in 1835 admitted that it would be impossible to collect the arrears of tithe, and offered a million of English money to pay the arrears, has the evil since sunk into such insignificant dimensions? No. I call on you to legislate with a view to the actual state of the country. You have said you are giving a great bonus to the landlords. I contend that you are charging them 75 per cent, for not one fraction will they be able to recover from their tenants in various parts of Ireland."

And this rabble disdain of the legislature, this insult to the law, and this rebellious determination to pay neither elergyman nor landlord, is the work of conciliation on the holy five millions and a half of the sons of Papistry! And these are the men whose representatives we are to receive as our law. makers-whose pledges we are to admit whenever it suits their purposes to give them-and whose promises we are to see broken on the most essential points of national existence-and have no other remedy than in shrugging up our shoulders and begging of them to make more.

And is England come to this! Proud, powerful, honest England!

But the malignity of the faction is not left to surmises. In the late meeting at the Royal Exchange in Dublin, Mr O'Connell pronounced that Lord Howick, "whose name, he further declared, ought to be written in letters of gold, had declared the most liberal and comprehensive views on the question of the Irish Church." He further pronounced that "the Tithe bill had passed with no good feature but the 25 per cent-a mere bite out of the cherry, and the buying off of the arrears. The bill was most unsatisfactory, and he took it as a mere instalment." He then came to language which we are persuaded that no man but Mr O'Connell would use, or could use with impunity :

"The minority in the Commons was too large against us, and the House of Lords was too dishonest to afford us any hope of justice. The course against Ireland was decided at Apsley House, with the odious Duke of Wellington in the chair-that man without a single virtue-that most ludicrous of mankind."

Having thus bemired the man who made such sacrifices to bring him and his fellows into parliament; that fatal concession, without which we should have seen those abominable ruffians either sunk in the obscurity suited to their talents, or suffering the punishment due to their crimes; this man pours out his whole gall in an appeal to the rabble :

"There is now," says he, "no chance of amelioration for Ireland. The Ministry are unable to obtain reform; and the Tories are determined to go backwards, and take from the Irish much of what they possessed. Under

"Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not, Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow!"

It happens, by a curious coincidence, that we are furnished with a running commentary on the Agitator's style, by a brother agitator. On the principle of the old proverb, Mr Roebuck is precisely the man " to catch" Mr O'Connell. We thus leave the hired agent of the Liberals of Canada to translate for the British public the true meaning of the hired agent of the Irish priests. Mr O'Connell, especially sensitive to the charge of poltroonery, having attempted, in one of his speeches, to throw the failure of the Canadian rebels on their embarking in open hostilities, the little Canadian Agent thus tears the disguise off the Man of the Rent. "Papineau and the rest were guilty of holding seditious meetings, and forming military companies, spite of the executive." So says the instrument of Father McHale. "Now pray," replies Roebuck, "who set them the example of holding meetings in spite of the executive? Ah but,' you answer, I never called together military companies?' This, sir, allow me to say, is miserable skulking. Have not the meetings held by you been deemed so dangerous that they were put down by act of Parliament? Why were they dangerous? Do you suppose that it was the mere Irish rhetoric that overflowed at these meetings that created alarm? You and your brother orators might have harangued till doomsday had you not got together multitudes, and excited passions that portended actual outbreak-rebellion, or, if it please you more-revolution! Have I not heard you, times beyond number, say, We are seven millions?' Have I not heard significant allusions made to those Scottish broadswords which won a national church for Scotland?' Did all those sayings mean nothing but peace? Was there no threat lurking beneath? Did not every man who heard you

know that you threatened violence? Again, your ready answer is—'Ay, but I never was guilty of it?' But if actual outbreak be a crime the threat is a crime also; and although you may fortunately have eluded the fulfilment of your threat you are no less a criminal."

6

Mr Roebuck then quotes one of the debates on the Coercion Bill. The cry of Order, order,' having risen on some outrageous expressions from O'Connell, he exclaims, We are seven millions,' &c., are we tamely to submit? No, sir. We will not submit-we will resist this atrocious, this Algerine enactment. (Cries of order, order.) Sir, I am not out of order. I am speaking on behalf of my country-of Ireland, upon which you have trampled for seven centuries, but upon which you shall trample no longer.' Here a member rose to order: The hon. and learned Member for Dublin is threatening the House, and is, I submit, out of order, and violating the rules of this House.' Mr O'Connell (with a sudden lowering of his voice and affected humility of manner), threats I have used none. I should never dream of using threats to Englishmen.' (Roars of laughter from all parts of the House, and cries of oh! oh!) "Is not this a faithful picture of what has often occurred in the House of Commons, to say nothing of your Irish effusions?"

"In

The conclusion of the letter settles the question at once of the Irish Agitator and the English Cabinet. 1833 your language to the Canadians would have been different. At that period you did not rule over Ireland; an obsequious Cabinet did not gratify your personal vanity at the expense of your country and ours.

If we wanted fuller evidence of the fallacy of the Mulgrave tranquillizers, we have the evidence of irresistible facts. Thus we have Lord Brougham, in his speech on the Irish Poor-Law Bill (July 9), stating, that it is wholly impossible to believe those protestations. "He had been led to believe," said he, “that there never had been a condition of the country so complete, prosperity so unbroken-such undisturbed peacefulness as reigned over the kingdom of Ireland under the Government of my noble friend (Mulgrave). But what was his astonishment to receive such letters as those which he would read to their Lordships, and which came from a strong supporter of the Government. In one of these the writer said, I am quite disheartened and disgusted with the state of the people of Ireland. I am astonished at the change which has taken place among them during the few years that I have been absent; for now the whole country is disturbed by dangerous and desperate assassins, against whose outrages the law is completely powerless. (Hear, hear.) What hope, then, had the Government of pacifying them by a Poor-Law Bill? Why, if they gave them in addition a Municipal Bill, and another for the total abolition of tithe, it would not have the smallest effect upon them. I have had also another letter," said Lord Brougham," in which it is stated, You can scarcely conceive the desperate state of this country. The fact is, that no man's life is worth an hour's purchase, and a reign of terror is established which every one feels, and is alarmed at.' And yet if rewards of L.1000 were offered," observed his Lordship, "they would be of no avail, for the parties were afraid to prosecute. Within the last ten days, contrary to the general testimony presented to their Lordships about the tranquillity of Ireland, Mr O'Connell, who had extraordinary influence in that country, and who would not admit the fact-who would not feel inclined, from his political and personal feelings, to express it, were it not wrung from him by truths too pal

pable not to be generally admitted— Mr O'Connell declared Ireland to be in a state of the greatest excitement, nearly bordering on insurrection. He said that Ireland was in a most dangerous state, and that he was not sure but that the holding up of a finger would cause a revolt, in which 10,000 men would join. We believe that the 10,000 was a mere mistake of the reporter; for ten times the number would be the more probable amount, and it will be ten times that too if we leave Ireland in the hands of Popish faction for a twelvemonth longer." So much for his Lordship's facts. But we must beg leave to decline adopting his remedy. What is that remedy? Having gained nothing but disturbance by concession, let us go on conceding. Having only inflamed. the insolence of faction by submitting to its demands, we must now try to subdue it by submitting still more abjectly to still more exorbitant demands. Having given Popery the power of attacking the Church, let us lower its hostility by giving it the power of trampling on that Church. But this eccentric peacemaker pushes his discovery still farther, and exhibits his grand politico-theologico-statistico panacea, in the shape of-what? A salary, from the public purse, for the Romish priesthood. "Let your Lordships," said the noble and learned Lord, "pass the Tithe Bill, the Irish Corporation Bill. But there is one thing more, without which all will be fruitless. There must be a provision for the Roman Catholic clergy. I would say to them, One priest shall have L.100 a-year, another L.150, a bishop L.300, an archbishop L.450, or some such amounts! I would say, here is the money. Will you take it? You have opposed this provision, you have not forfeited your consistency, you still retain the confidence of your flocks, but here is the money, a grant from Parliament, and after this, though not in the habit of indulging in predictions, he felt satisfied that all the priesthood would immediately come into terms." are rather less than his lordship in the habit of indulging in predictions, but we are perfectly safe in predicting to him that his panacea would be received by the whole Popish clergy as a direct insult; that it would be thrown in the noble legislator's teeth without

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